


Adjustments

by respectabledive



Category: Ghosts (TV 2019) RPF, Horrible Histories RPF, Yonderland (TV) RPF
Genre: First Time, Fluff, Hand Jobs, Idiots in Love, Kissing, Love Confessions, M/M, oh in italics
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-21
Updated: 2020-12-21
Packaged: 2021-03-11 03:14:47
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,921
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28218297
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/respectabledive/pseuds/respectabledive
Summary: It wouldn’t do to get all worked up tonight, although he supposed it was hardly a surprising progression from the giddiness of success.It's 2012 and Ben has just had something of an epiphany. Now he has to catch Larry up.
Relationships: Larry Rickard/Ben Willbond
Comments: 6
Kudos: 35





	Adjustments

Ben had been quiet in the cab, but that wasn’t unusual. Awards shows, people, cameras and demands. He was always ready to leave well before the others. On the steps up to the door though, away from the driver and the last stranger he would have to encounter for the night, Ben still didn’t say anything. He just fumbled over his keys and let Larry in the door with a thin apologetic smile. He paused in the hallway while Larry marched straight through.

“I don’t think I’m ready to sleep yet,” Larry called back from the kitchen. “Do you have beer? Do you mind?”

He was already at the fridge, rummaging past the punnets of little tomatoes and slightly slimy unopened bags of kale to the hidden cheese stash. There wasn’t any beer but there was half a bottle of screwtop sauvignon blanc that might still be serviceable.

Larry pulled out the bottle and when he turned he saw that Ben was quietly waiting behind him, lingering by the kitchen island. He realised then that Ben hadn’t invited him back to his house so much as Larry had invited himself, and Ben wasn’t looking at him but watching his own fingers worrying absently at the edge of a raffia coaster. When he did lift his eyes to meet Larry's they were soft and shining and Larry didn’t have time to ask if he was alright before Ben closed the gap between them with a few steps, took the wine bottle from Larry’s hand, and placed it on the counter with a gentle knock. The sound felt suddenly cacophonous to Larry’s ears, still ringing from the excitement back at the theatre. He took a breath to steady his blood. It wouldn’t do to get all worked up tonight, although he supposed it was hardly a surprising progression from the giddiness of success. Ben’s hand was on the edge of Larry’s jacket though, as though he didn't dare to touch further than his hem.

“Hello,” Larry said, as quietly, as gently as possible, with his warmest smile. Whatever this was he didn’t want to startle Ben out of it.

“Hi.”

“How are you?”

“Pretty excellent,” Ben said, almost in a whisper, and Larry smiled at the downplayed hyperbole.

Larry felt a light pull on his jacket and took a step forward, hoping he read the request right. He was really in Ben’s space now. Closer than they had been pushed together for interviews, closer than the conversation required, closer than was _professionally appropriate_. Closer than friends.

“You got right up in my face tonight,” Ben said, his eyes showing a flicker of something. Want and worry, perhaps. Maybe Larry was projecting.

“Cheek to cheek, one might say,” Larry said, with a little sway of his hips, a joke of a dance. It was enough to make Ben withdraw and Larry cursed himself.

“I didn’t mean to pull away,” Ben said, and Larry couldn’t tell if he meant just now or back at the theatre.

“No?” Larry asked, returning for a moment to the warm feel of Ben’s skin on his, hot with the lights and the drink and the success, and _his_ just in that second.

“But, you know.” _Awards shows, people, cameras and demands._

Ben’s hands returned, both of them this time. The lightest pressure at the loose folds of Larry’s shirt, brushing his waist. Larry didn’t know what to do with his own hands, where they could go, what was happening. He knew what he wanted to be happening of course, where he _wanted_ his hands to go, if he could let himself for a second believe that’s what _Ben_ wanted. Oh _hell._

“Would you do it again?” Ben asked.

“What?” Larry said, wrenched suddenly back to the present.

“Would you-”

“Of course!”

What to do with his hands was no longer a problem. One he slipped across Ben’s ribs to the small of his back and drew him in. He wrapped his other arm over Ben’s shoulder to where his fingers could curl around the back of Ben's neck, smooth down the hair at his nape, and let him know it was okay. He could feel Ben’s breath, a low sigh through his nose that tickled his earlobe. He could feel Ben’s eyelashes flutter shut against his temple.

“You okay there?” Larry asked after a moment.

“I’m... making some adjustments,” Ben said, his lips brushing over Larry’s cheekbone. He drew back and tapped a finger to his temple. “In here.”

Then he held his hand flat over his heart. “And here.”

Larry thought he might die.

“It’s not really any big revelation, I mean, it’s just-” Ben's gaze flicked from Larry's eyes to his mouth. “I can’t-”

“Ben.”

“Fuck.”

Ben brought their lips together and Larry almost fell over. In part it was the shock. When he had entertained the fantasies of great declarations and yearned-for kisses, it had always been _him_ sweeping Ben off his feet. To find himself on the receiving end of the seduction was a wonderful surprise, but one he had absolutely no script for. Then there was the torrent of ludicrous cliches that went barrelling through his mind, visions of fireworks exploding overhead and orchestras swelling to great crescendos. _I’m a hack,_ he thought, _a terrible fraud, if this is the best I can come up with._ Something in him must have frozen up because in a second Ben was pulling away.

“Is this? Is this okay?” Ben asked, bringing his forehead to rest against Larry’s.

Larry could absolutely kick himself. Their first kiss and he had missed it. He had forgotten entirely to catalogue the feeling of Ben’s mouth moving against his, the taste and warmth of him. Larry opened his eyes and saw that Ben’s were still closed and felt his heart twist that Ben could think this was one-sided. But then he had been under the same impression, although he would argue with a little more cause. Larry’s heart had always been on his sleeve, in full view of everyone. Buttoned-up Ben was a much more difficult read.

“Larry?” Ben whispered, he sounded so scared.

“God, Ben. I don’t think,” Larry paused and tried to gather his thoughts into something not entirely stupid. “I don’t think I’ve been especially subtle about _not_ needing to make adjustments.”

“No,” Ben said and opened his eyes with a smile. “Not especially.”

Ben’s arms tightened round him and they were kissing again. This time Larry didn’t waste a moment. Before he could start overthinking what one was supposed to do with various body parts during a kiss he brought his hand up to cradle Ben’s jaw and held him there until his lips parted just enough to let Larry trace along them with the tip of his tongue. Ben gasped softly and pressed closer, making a small noise when Larry deepened the kiss, and arched his body against Ben’s, luxuriating in the feel of his hands spread over his back.

“And no big revelation, you said?” Larry asked when they broke apart. “Because it sort of is, actually, to me.”

“Generally or specifically?”

“ _Both,”_ Larry laughed. “I had sort of been operating under the assumption you were straight.”

Ben dropped his chin. Even now he looked like he was still scared of everything. As if he hadn’t just kissed one of the all time great kisses with his best friend.

“Well, I’m not,” he said finally.

Larry tried to think of a response but his brain was just playing _Ben likes men, Ben likes men_ on a loop that made him both want to laugh at his own ridiculousness and cry with relief. _Ben likes **me**._

“I can’t tell you how thrilled I am to hear that, mate,” he said and before Ben had finished laughing at him they were kissing again.

It was more frantic now. Hotter. As though Ben’s fear was finally unfrozen and Larry’s surprise faded and they were racing to make up for lost time. Ben leaned back against the kitchen island and pulled Larry along with him, his hands caught between grabbing at him, hauling him closer, and pushing his jacket from his shoulders. Larry let him, _god let him do anything he wants._ He shrugged his shoulders and only got tangled in the sleeves for a moment before the jacket fell to the floor and he was free to get his hands back in Ben’s hair, clinging on to him like he’d never let go. Ben was tugging at the edge on his shirt, the waistband of his trousers, pulling him closer. Larry hesitated just for a moment before crowding up in Ben’s space and rolling his hips forward. There wouldn’t be much hiding how he felt after that.

“Oh my _fuck,”_ Ben said, hot against Larry’s mouth, and before Larry could apologise Ben had grabbed a handful of his arse and was grinding back, apparently equally if not more so into what was happening.

“Jesus christ, why are you so hot?” Larry gasped, kissing across Ben’s jaw to his ear. “I mean of course you are, but _why.”_

“Just my natural musk, I suppose,” Ben laughed, working Larry’s shirt free of his trousers and pushing his hands under the fabric to his skin. His laugh turned to a low moan as Larry closed his teeth around Ben’s earlobe.

“Oh god, Larry. I’m having a wonderful time,” Ben said into Larry’s collar. “But can we move this somewhere softer and, er, less upright?”

“Bring the wine,” Larry replied, and as he turned away Ben caught him by the wrist and pulled him back. “No, wait a second I changed my mind.”

Larry laughed into the kiss, giddy with it all, he didn’t want it to end either.

“Christ, you’ve actually made me all dizzy,” Ben said when he finally let Larry go. “I feel like a kid.”

“Rolling around in the common room with the first boy to flash you a bit of ankle?” Larry teased, reaching to retrieve the wine bottle.

“Something like that, yeah,” Ben said, biting the corner of his lower lip.

“You’ll have to tell me all about it one day,” Larry said, his fingers closing around Ben’s tie and reeling him in.

“One day.”

“When your mouth is less occupied.”

Ben might have whispered a curse before their lips met again but Larry had stopped listening. It didn’t matter at all that Ben was the same age as him, in the mental image that leaped into his head, young Benjamin had gone up to Oxford in the 1940s and the boyish flush to his cheeks could be from the itchy woollen jersey as much as the first blossomings of deviant sexuality. It was causing the heat to rise in Larry a little more than he cared to admit.

“Sofa?” Ben said when Larry released him.

“Sofa.”

Larry skipped out of the kitchen and threw himself down on the sofa, and narrowly avoided smashing the wine bottle off the coffee table like it was a maiden voyage. It sort of _was_ , Larry thought and giggled to himself. Ben was taking his time, however. He took his jacket off slowly, loosened and pulled away his tie, and rolled up his shirt sleeves, all the while holding steady eye contact with Larry, his hair messed up from its usual neatness by Larry’s grasping hands. He spun on his heel to the kitchen cupboards for glasses - very civilised, not at all like the necking from the bottle that had accompanied Larry’s early dalliances - and with the stems laced between his long fingers, carried them over to where Larry was sprawled and slack-jawed on the sofa.

“Well that’s hardly fair,” Larry protested, as Ben batted his legs away and perched on the edge of the cushions.

“What do you mean?” Ben said. He was spinning the top of the wine open and pouring it into the glasses and not looking at Larry at all, but Larry could still see the twinkle that accompanied the creases in the corner of his eye.

“That you’re _all that,_ and I’m,” Larry gestured vaguely at his own ridiculous and crumpled body.

“Clever? Funny? Gorgeous?” Ben said, handing him a glass.

“Oh you,” Larry said, taking the wine and somehow ignoring both the sparks as Ben’s fingers brushed his, and the urge to down the whole glass. “You’ll make me blush.”

“You already are,” Ben said, and Larry had the idea his colour must have deepened. He might have been embarrassed if he weren't flying so high.

“What shall we drink to?”

Larry paused. He couldn't keep count of where they were in the rally, but now the ball was firmly in his court. He knew that Ben knew his impulse would be to make a joke. Some throwaway quip that would make Ben laugh and the moment pass and they could go right back to- No, if this was Ben’s way of offering him an out he wasn’t about to take it.

“To professional triumphs!” Larry announced, raising his glass. “And _personal adjustments._ And to the happiest I think I’ve ever been.”

Ben gave him a soft warm smile as he mirrored his raised glass and softly repeated “The happiest I’ve ever been”. Not for the first time that evening, Larry thought his heart might burst out of his chest.

Larry took the smallest sip of wine and had barely set his glass down again before Ben leaned over and was kissing him again. Not as tentative and he had been at first, nor with the same desperation and longing that plastered them together in the kitchen, but sweet and meaningful and- Larry’s breath caught in his lungs. _Loving._ Once that thought entered his head it seemed obvious. So perfectly obvious and so completely terrifying. Of course they loved each other. Larry felt like he was falling from a skyscraper. Oh.

_Oh._

And of course Ben already knew. Bloody brilliant Ben, sharper, quicker, and just a whole lot less oblivious. He knew hours ago. Probably around the time they were listening to Mat waffle on about the great friendships made on the HH set. Around the time Ben had whispered “I met you” in Larry’s ear and Larry had mistaken an overture for an observation.

“Ben?”

“Mmmm?” Ben hummed between nibbling kisses on Larry’s throat.

“I can’t believe I’m going to ask you this, but can we back up a second?”

“What’s wrong?” Ben pulled back, worry creeping back into his voice.

“Oh god, nothing,” Larry sighed. “That might be the problem.”

Ben only looked more confused.

“I mean, this feels right, doesn’t this feel right? Like it should have happened a long time ago but somehow even more perfect for happening right now?”

“Larry, I can pretend to have a clue what you’re talking about if you like, but we both know I’m not that good an actor.”

“Shut up, you’re brilliant. And I don’t appreciate being distracted from my point,” Larry furrowed his brow in mock seriousness. “I’m trying to say something here.”

“Sorry,” Ben said, and closed his hand over Larry’s. “Try it again with breathing.”

“I don’t want to go too fast with you,” he said. “If going slow got us this far.”

Ben’s hand stroked along Larry’s thighs and came to a stop at his hips. “I don’t see it as a problem,” he said with a lewd raised eyebrow.

“You don’t see it as a problem,” Larry repeated rather than trust his own words, the noises, _worse,_ that were in danger of spilling from him. He couldn’t help but lift his hips into Ben’s touch.

“I do not. Quite the opposite in fact,” Ben rubbed his thumbs in little circles closer and closer to Larry’s dick. “But we can stop if you want.”

His hands moved away and this time Larry couldn’t hold back a whine. He grabbed Ben and kissed him in hopes of drowning out his own ridiculousness and got a mouthful of laughter back.

“Jesus christ,” Larry breathed, threading his fingers into Ben’s hair. His mind reeled once again with the information that Ben was a lot more prepared for this than he was. That however nervous Ben had been to make his move, he _had_ made it, and he was the one to embrace every bit of what that meant. _Now who’s scared, Laurence?_ Larry thought.

They stayed like that for a while. Ben did slow down, and those few minutes with things not spiralling away from him gave Larry space to think. Space to feel. It was intoxicating and made him dizzy. Part of him wanted to stay right here kissing and groping like teenagers forever, and another part wanted to skip right to the end, to whatever kind of octogenarian domestic bliss surely awaited them. They felt safe. The immediate now, and the abstract future. It was everything in between that scared him.

Larry leaned back and breathed out quietly, hoping his wine and buffet dinner breath wasn’t too noxious. The top button of Ben’s shirt was already undone, but Larry made quick work of two more and pushed his hand in, warm and firm over Ben’s skin. He tried not to listen too much to Ben’s breath catching, or how he tensed up for just a second at the contact. As he paused over the base of Ben’s neck he could feel Ben’s pulse pounding away under there and it made his own heart thump harder in his chest. Larry took a breath and committed to the fall.

“Can we take this upstairs?” he asked, circling his fingers over the side of Ben’s neck and up behind his ear.

“I ask in consideration of your sofa,” Larry added when Ben didn’t reply. “And my back, I’m terribly old and decrepit.”

“What does that make me?” Ben asked softly.

“Oh, well, you actually look after yourself, so I guess youthful and vibrant?” Larry made a face and Ben cuffed him lightly on the shoulder.

“Cheek.”

“We don’t have to,” Larry leaned in to kiss him again. “Although I can’t promise your spare room will escape with its dignity.”

Ben laughed again. “There’s only one problem, Larry,” he said seriously.

Larry froze.

“I can’t move.”

“Oh,” Larry felt an enormous wave of relief crash over him as he realised that for all his talk of slowing down, he had all but climbed into Ben’s lap. He let himself fall sideways onto the cushions and pulled Ben down on top of him instead.

“Is that better?” he asked, breathless under the weight and giddiness.

“Christ,” Ben huffed and pulled himself upright out of the tangle and off the sofa. He adjusted himself in his trousers and Larry felt a sudden heat rise in his cheeks.

Ben held out a hand and Larry took it and was tugged only half under his own steam to standing. He hadn’t even had that much to drink, recently, and still the blood rush made him almost swoon into Ben’s arms.

“Oh, hello,” Ben said.

“God,” Larry said against his mouth. “I don’t know if I can make it upstairs.”

Ben turned his head and kissed up Larry's jaw to his ear. “You can,” he whispered, and stepped back, keeping hold of Larry’s hand and pulling him along. In the hallway Ben stopped to kick off his shoes and paused at the bottom of the stairs while Larry did the same. Larry almost overbalanced clawing hastily at his laces and caught himself on the wall. When he looked up at Ben they both dissolved into giggles.

“Come on,” Ben said and Larry’s hand was in his again.

Ben slowed them both down, took each step carefully, looking back at Larry over his shoulder with a smile quirking the corner of his mouth. He was good at that. Good at calming everyone down when spirits were up or tensions high. He was solid, and steady. Larry banished the phrase _firm hand on the tiller_ from his mind a second too late as his eyes followed Ben’s arse up the last steps and when they reached the landing he crowded Ben against the wall immediately.

“You’re very hot when you do that, you know,” Larry said, flattening his body against Ben’s, running his hands up Ben’s sides and feeling him squirm a little.

“Oh yeah? When I do what exactly?”

Larry swallowed. “Take control.”

Ben just raised an eyebrow and Larry thought he might faint. “Oh god,” he said pushing his face into Ben’s collar.

“Larry,” Ben said softly. “I don’t want to alarm you, but you have not been subtle about that either.”

“No?”

“No.”

Ben ran his hand into Larry’s hair and pulled lightly. It was a question, and enquiry, something Larry couldn’t find the words for. His head was spinning. He made a sort of moan and moved into Ben's touch, pliable in his hands. When he dared to meet Ben’s eyes again they had grown dark and wide.

Ben’s hand tightened a little in Larry’s hair as he kissed down Larry’s throat to his open collar. Larry held still. He didn’t realise he was waiting for instruction until Ben gave one.

“Could you do my belt, please, I’m busy.”

He went immediately to Ben’s belt buckle, and the second he had pulled the belt away he started tearing at his own buttons and scrambling out of his shirt. His every movement made more warmth wash through his skin and as his shirt fell to the floor Ben was pushing and manhandling him towards the bedroom. Ben’s room. Not the spare room. Larry backed his way through the door and Ben gave him a light shove that sent him sprawling backwards as the back of his legs hit the bed. The impact as he hit the mattress knocked a puff of air from him and he broke into a laugh again.

“Oh, I’m just your plaything to be tossed around now, I see.”

He saw Ben’s eyes flash and his throat bob before he spoke. “Well, I wouldn’t _not_ say that.”

Ben walked forward until his knees rested either side of where Larry’s hung over the edge of the bed. He looked tall and looming standing over him like that. The half darkness cast sharp cut shadows over his features.

“You’re very handsome, Mr Willbond.”

Ben sighed like he was carrying a terrible burden. “I _know,”_ he said and cocked an eyebrow and curled one corner of his mouth into a smirk.  
He raised his hands and made a show of slowly unbuttoning his shirt. It wasn’t quite a strip tease and Larry somehow restrained himself from humming stripper music and instead just watched, breathing heavy and enraptured. Ben shrugged out of his shirt and started immediately on his trousers and Larry felt his heart skip. This was hardly his first time, but after what he would consider a _fairly_ regular fantasy of Ben doing exactly this, it was a little overwhelming for it to be actually happening. _Was it even happening?_ Larry brought a hand up to his chest and pinched his own nipple hard. It made him arch up and Ben growl.

“Fucking hell.”

“Sorry, just checking something.”

“Check all you want.”

Larry took the cue and let his hands wander all over his chest and stomach, pinching a little here and scratching over his ribs. Ben watched for a moment, his chest rising and falling in deep breaths. He bent forward to push off his trousers, and then practically pounced.

“I should have known you were a filthy exhibitionist,” he growled hot against Larry’s neck.

“Yes, you should,” Larry laughed and started shuffling himself further back on the bed. Soon Ben was laying beside him, his skin beginning to shine with perspiration, and his mouth seemingly permanently attached to Larry’s throat. Ben’s hands were everywhere and then suddenly one was in Larry’s hair again and the other was squeezing at his arse and then running over his trousers and _fuck_ that was Ben’s fucking hand stroking and groping at his dick. Larry whined and Ben swallowed it up in a kiss. When they broke apart Larry was panting, his hips rocking up against Ben’s touch.

“Oh god, fuck, _please_ Ben.”

“Please what?” Ben feigned ignorance and he eased off the pressure. Larry groaned and threw his head back against the sheets but he could feel Ben’s fingers working at the button on his trousers. A very smooth one-handed tug at his fly eased some of the pressure and then Ben’s hand was on him again, though still tortuously separated by the last layer of fabric of Larry’s boxers.

“You’re a wretched, miserable man,” Larry said, uttering each word between desperate kisses.

He closed his fingers around Ben’s wrist and thrust his hips harder into his hand, and licked a long wet stripe over Ben’s chest, pointing his tongue to catch on his nipple. He elicited a low moan and Ben’s hand tightening again in his hair in return.

“You’ve changed your tune,” Ben said, practically panting. “What happened to going slow?”

“Absolutely fuck that,” Larry said and rolled free to strip off the rest of his clothes. He got rid of his trousers and boxers in one move and hopped around ridiculously trying to remove his socks. When he turned back to the bed Ben was resting on his side, his head propped up in one hand, just smiling a small and soft smile at him.

“Oh give over,” Larry drawled in a northern accent and did a little twirl. “Nothing you haven’t seen in the middle of a quick change, I’m sure.”

“Quite a bit more actually,” Ben corrected, with a pointed look at where Larry’s cock was standing proud from a bush of hair.

“Very flattering lighting in here,” Larry said and settled back on the bed.

The mattress dipped under Larry’s weight and Ben rolled forward with it, catching Larry’s jaw in his hand and bringing their mouths together again. Larry wrapped his arms around Ben’s shoulders and pulled him over, almost on top of him, and tilted his head up, opening his mouth a little wider to push his tongue alongside Ben’s. He moaned into the kiss and got a similar noise from Ben, and a firm squeeze on his arse. Larry almost yelped, and then thought about the fingertip-sized bruises Ben could well be leaving over his cheeks and groaned again, arching against Ben’s body.

He felt ridiculous and needy but when Ben broke away from the kiss there was wonder in his voice. “Christ, you’re-”

“What?” Larry breathed.

“I don’t know. Wonderful,” Ben smiled and kissed and groped him again and Larry let all the noises he was holding back spill forth.

When Ben finally, _finally,_ moved his hand round and wrapped it warm and firm around Larry’s cock, the sensation and the _relief_ was almost enough to make him spill over. He whined and keened as Ben started stroking him, getting faster as Larry’s breath became uneven.

“Oh my god, Ben, yes that feels so good. You feel so good,” Larry said while Ben worked kisses over his jaw and throat. “Please, I need you to-”

Larry was almost pinned but moved enough to tug at Ben’s boxers, cup and feel the hard weight of him under the fabric. Ben got the _extremely subtle_ hint and started wriggling his hips out of his underwear, Larry didn’t even mind the second Ben’s hand left him to push the boxers out of the way. Because there was Ben. There they both were, naked in Ben’s room, on Ben’s bed. Rolling around with their hair messed up and their suits, _their suits!_ strewn about the floor, and it was all too perfect. Larry reached out to gather Ben back to him and this time when he pressed against Ben’s body there was nothing but skin and heat and the slide of Ben’s cock against his.

“Jesus, Larry,” Ben was panting against his ear, clinging to him by a fistful of hair and rolling his hips forward in a steady rhythm.

He raised his hand and licked up the length of his palm. It was millimetres from Larry’s face and he couldn’t resist lunging forward and taking two of Ben’s fingers in his mouth, laving his tongue around and over them.

“Holy shit,” Ben whispered and kissed Larry around his fingers, pushing back with his own tongue.

His hand was soaked and coated when he drew it back and carried on his assault on Larry’s mouth while he reached between them and caught Larry’s cock and started jerking with hot slickness. Larry hooked his leg around Ben’s hips, pulling them closer together and giving himself more leverage to fuck into Ben’s hand.

The head of Larry's cock brushed against Ben’s, and bumped against Ben’s belly. He clamoured closer, their skin was getting slick. He worked his hand in to touch Ben’s cock, to finally feel it against his palm. He didn’t know why it had taken him so long, didn’t realise it had, how he had waited. Ben was wet with the heat, with the proximity and Larry's spit-wet fingers and the drips of pre-come. He cried out when Larry touched him and buried his face into the crook of Larry’s neck, pressing rough kisses and just a hint of teeth against where Larry's pulse was hammering.

“Do it,” Larry whispered, _“Please.”_

It wasn’t a hard bite but it had enough of a pinch and suction and it was _Ben_ to make Larry’s eyes roll back and more words tumble out of his mouth.

“Fuck, oh my god Ben, you’re making me crazy.”

He felt Ben laugh against his neck and then they were face to face again, _cheek to cheek,_ as Ben pressed his forehead against Larry’s temple.

“Next time we’re going to see how much you can keep talking with your mouth occupied.”

“Next time?”

“Next time when I get you on your knees, and hold you by your hair, and have you suck my dick until you can't breathe,” Ben panted, hot and ragged.

Ben’s grip tightened around Larry’s cock and while he was still reeling from the filth suddenly pouring forth he came hard in Ben’s hand, shuddering and gasping against him.

“Fuck, Larry,” Ben breathed heavy and desperate and came a second after, his teeth digging into Larry’s shoulder again as they each jerked and shook and clung to each other.

Larry didn’t black out exactly, but he definitely checked out for a second and it was Ben’s hand smoothing over his hair, tidying him up, that drew him back.

“Hello.”

“Oh yes, good evening,” Larry grinned.

“It was a bit.”

There was something in Ben’s eyes, as if doubt could possibly be creeping into him as his orgasm faded and Larry made it his mission to kiss it all away.

“God, that was good,” he said, as Ben eventually rolled off him and collapsed back against the sheets. “You’re _very_ good at that.”

“You’re welcome,” Ben said, and laughed when Larry batted his arm.

He turned on his side, propped up in his hand again and smiled. “You’re not so bad either, you know.”

Larry smiled back in a way that he hoped conveyed ongoing desire and horrible schoolboy randiness as well as _fondness._ It was probably asking a bit much of a single expression. He became aware of the chill and also the damp patch between them at the same time Ben did.

Ben took his boxers from where they were still caught on one ankle. How had Larry missed _that?_ Well, he knew how, but now he’d noticed he’d be sure to rib Ben about it in the near future. Ben wiped down Larry’s belly, laughing at how Larry twitched and squirmed with ticklishness, and then his own stomach and thighs and made a cursory pat at the spillage on the sheets. Then he lobbed the boxers at the laundry bin only for them to fall short and land on the floor.

“Horrible,” Larry said with another small smile and a roll of his eyes.

“They’re in the laundry,” Ben protested. “It’s not like I’m putting them back on.”

“No?”

“Shut up.”

Larry saw Ben’s eyes flick to the door and leapt up from the bed before he did.

“I’m going for a slash,” he squeaked as he ran out and heard Ben calling “You prick!” after him.

When Larry returned, fresher and lighter, having cleaned himself up with something more effective than sweaty boxer shorts, and made use of Ben’s toothpaste, he hovered in the doorway of the bedroom, hands cupped over his cock for modesty’s sake. Ben was under the covers, in the low light of the bedside lamp.

“I can take the spare?” Larry said, silently pleading with the universe not to make him.

Ben flipped back the corner of the covers and waggled his eyebrows. “Then who’d sleep here?”

Larry grinned and climbed into bed.

“Now I’m going to the bathroom,” Ben said, after Larry had kissed and pawed at him for a moment. “Serves you right I didn’t piss all over your side.”

“Horrible!” Larry said again and snuggled down into the sheets.

Ben kissed the tip of Larry’s nose and slipped out and round the bed. Larry noticed he had indeed not put any underwear back on and seemed far less concerned about modesty.

He was already almost snoozing when Ben came back. As soon as Ben was under the covers Larry wriggled up to his side and laid his head in the crook of Ben’s shoulder. Ben wrapped his arms around him.

“Laurence Rickard, the little spoon. Of course,” Ben chuckled softly. “Are you okay there?”

Larry nodded. “Are you?”

“I’m very okay.”

Larry sighed happily and turned his face up to Ben. “Did you mean what you said?”

“About what?”

“Er, _next time.”_

Even in the soft low light Larry could see a blush rise in Ben’s cheeks.

“Sorry, was that a bit much?” he stammered.

“I don’t know if you noticed, Ben, but I _quite liked it.”_

“Okay good,” Ben gave Larry’s shoulder a squeeze.

“You didn’t answer my question.”

“No, I suppose I didn’t.”

_“Ben.”_

Ben laughed and ran his fingers through Larry’s hair again. Not quite pulling, but it was enough to get Larry’s attention.

“I meant that I would like there to be a next time,” he said. “And we can do whatever you want.”

“Your thing sounds good,” Larry replied, feeling his own face heat. Other things too.

Ben took his arms back from around Larry and shuffled down into the sheets. They were eye to eye again, and Ben’s hand was skimming feather light over Larry’s arm, making him desperate for more.

“That makes me happy,” Ben said, and locked eyes with Larry. “You make me happy.”

“God, Ben,” Larry caught Ben’s face in his hand and kissed him deep and slow, show don’t tell running through his head as he did it. Telling couldn’t hurt either, mind. “You make me incredibly, dizzyingly, astronomically happy too.”

“Alright, don’t over egg it,” Ben laughed as his hand settled over Larry’s hip, his fingers curling over towards the small of Larry’s back, the top of the swell of his arse. Ben’s fingers, just a little firmer than they needed to be. Ben’s body and Ben’s bed. Ben’s face close to his. Larry sighed happily.

“Goodnight, Ben.”

“Goodnight, Larry.”

Larry closed his eyes.

**Author's Note:**

> [u kno 🤫](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gbJwSBm67_g)
> 
> [Also Ben here kills me.](https://youtu.be/rolH-bL8iQw?t=1105) _BEN._
> 
> Anyway, thank you for stopping by. I love this tiny corner in a corner <3


End file.
